Common decision-making pitfalls

In our last article, ‘Think like a Scientist!’, we outlined the benefits of adopting a sceptical approach to challenge myths, fads and fashions at work. Now we explore some of the most common decision-making traps we all fall in to, along with some suggestions for how to avoid them.

Here’s the bad news: we don’t always make good decisions! We frequently rely on gut feel, choosing options we personally prefer or rely on faulty logic. And whilst we don’t set out to make poor decisions, it’s a function of how our brains operate, along with what else is going on in our environment. Every one of us has ‘cognitive biases’ which impact how we process information and make decisions, some of which we summarise below:

We fail to deal with ‘Information overload’?

Every day we’re bombarded with new information and making sense of it all can be challenging. To help process all this data and information we rely on mental short-cuts and a selective focus. These usually serve us well, so we can give our limited attention to the most important information and activities. However, even with these tricks up our mental sleeve, we can be overwhelmed by information and options. Confirmation bias occurs when we place more emphasis on the information that supports our own views, disregarding contradictory evidence. For example, we might have a very positive opinion of an employee, rating them positively and ignoring their performance issues as ‘occasional slip ups’.